Scandinavian CANcer-in-Inflammatory Bowel Disease study (SCAN-IBD)

The main purpose of SCAN-IBD is to examine the risk of cancer and mortality in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in a cohort of patients from three Nordic countries: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. A second purpose is to examine risk factors for colorectal cancer in patients with IBD.

Team leader

Participating centres

Karolinska Institutet (KI) is one of the world's leading medical universities. KI accounts for over 40 per cent of the medical academic research conducted in Sweden and offers the country's broadest range of education in medicine and health sciences. The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet appoints the Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine. The Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics (MEB) is one of 22 departments at KI. It is one of the three highest-ranking departments at KI, the home of the Swedish Twin Registry and KI Biobank.

Department of Clinical Epidemiology (DCE) at Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital has experienced rapid development since its establishment in 2000 with a staff of three. It has become a respected international research department providing a wide range of consultancy services to pharmaceutical and biotech industries as well as to Danish and international health agencies. Today, DCE employs approximately 100 people from ten different countries.

The University of Oslo is educating one third of the medical students in Norway and two thirds of all PhD candidates. High standards for medical education and research are highest priority, and are facilitated by a close partnership with the South-Eastern Norway regional health Authority and Oslo University Hospital. In this project the Clinical effectiveness group at the Department of Health Management and Health Economics at the Institute of Health and Society is a partner.

Infrastructure

Publications

Publications from the study will be listed here once published.

Ethics

Vulnerable patient group: Patients with IBD have bloody diarrhoea, severe abdominal pain, and earlier reports indicate a high risk of cancer for those afflicted. CRC is a major cause of death in IBD. It would be unethical not to do research in this field. Combining registry-data from several countries increases statistical power and enhances the chances of conclusive data in a vulnerable group of patients.

Shared values and model collaboration: The Nordic countries share similar ethical values, management of data, and a tradition of working efficiently together. During the planning and extensive pilot work of this project (starting in April 2014), it has become clear that the different research groups have developed a consensus with regards to ethical and legal aspects. We believe our collaboration can serve as a model for similar pan-European projects and during the planning for this project, also one research group outside the Nordic countries has contacted us with the aim of joining our effort.